Imagine trying to ban a fairly elected ruling party, which won in a landslide only last year. Ludicrous. Yet such an attempt is now before Turkey's highest court on the grounds that secular government should not push Islam on society.
It is not out of the realm of possibility that the court will decide to hear this case, which was brought March 14 by Turkey's chief prosecutor. And if it does, it may favor the prosecutor, who charges the Islamic Party of Justice, or AKP, with subverting the country's secular Constitution. Since the 1970s, the court has shuttered four pro-Islamic parties.
The separation of mosque and state is an existential issue for this NATO member that bridges Europe and the Middle East. Although a mostly Muslim country, modern Turkey is built on the secularist model of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who introduced the Roman alphabet and women's suffrage after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.
Turkey stands as proof that democracy and Islam can coexist, and do so...
Turkey's chief prosecutor on Friday accused the country's president and prime minister of undermining secularism and moved to ban them from politics and to prohibit their Islamist-rooted party.
Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, chief prosecutor of the court of appeals, submitted his case against the Justice and Develomment Party (AKP) to the Constitutional Court, the latter's president Hasim Kilic said.
"Attached... is a demand that 71 individuals be banned from political activity," Kilic said, adding that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, a former AKP member, topped the list.
The constitutional court has yet to say whether it will agree to hear the complaint, which charges that the AKP has become a focal point for attempts to overturn the strictly secular ethos that underlies Turkey's constitution.
The AKP, whose roots in a now-banned Islamist movement have sown fear among secularist circles, branded the case as a blow to democracy and said it would "continue its fight for democracy with determination".
"The target of this case is not the AKP, but Turkish democracy and Turkish people," deputy party chairman Mehmet Mir Dengir Firat told a news conference after an emergency meeting of the AKP leadership.
"This is the biggest injustice committed against Turkey, our democracy, the will of our nation, our peace and stability, our prestige in the world."
A Turkish court has introduced a new obstacle to government efforts to allow female students to wear Islamic headscarves at Turkish universities.
Turkey's top administrative court Tuesday ruled that the body that supervises Turkish education overstepped its boundaries when it ordered universities to permit students to wear headscarves.
Last month, Turkey's President Abdullah Gul approved constitutional reforms that lift a decades-old ban on women wearing such scarves at schools.
Still, many universities defied the constitutional amendment and blocked female students with headscarves.
University officials are among secularist forces who say allowing Muslim headscarves in universities will undermine the separation of state and religion.
They say a different law governs university activities and that more legislation is needed for the constitutional amendment to apply to their schools.
Secular groups have challenged the reforms, and Turkey's Constitutional Court is considering the validity of the amendment.
The administrative court today did not address the issue of constitutionality.
Turkey banned head scarves in public places, schools and universities in the 1980s.
Turkey's government is planning a broad series of investments worth as much as $12 billion in the country's largely Kurdish southeast to create jobs and draw young men away from militancy, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Tuesday.
The initiative is designed to drain support for the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party by improving the lives of the impoverished Kurdish minority, Erdogan said in an interview.
As part of the push, the government will dedicate a state television channel to Kurdish language broadcasting, a measure that Kurds in Turkey have sought for years.
Kurds speak Kurdish, but the Turkish state has imposed severe restrictions on speaking it, arguing that allowing that freedom would strengthen their desire to form a separate state.
"Everyone who has entered Iraq until now will stay for a while and go away, but we will stay," said Erdogan, speaking in his official residence in Ankara, Turkey's capital.
"We have relatives in northern Iraq. And people living there have relatives in our southeastern region. With whom will we have good relations other than with ourselves?"
United States Vice President Dick Cheney will visit the Middle East next week and meet with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Palestinian West Bank and Turkey, the White House announced yesterday.
"President [George W.] Bush has asked the vice president to travel to Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the West Bank and Turkey for discussions with these key partners on issues of mutual interest. The vice president will meet with ... President [Abdullah] Gül and Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan of Turkey," the White House said in a brief written statement announcing the visit.
Both officials at the US Embassy in Ankara and at the Turkish Foreign Ministry headquarters declined to comment on content of the visit and exact date of Cheney’s arrival in Ankara. The vice president’s tour will kick off on March 16, the White House said.
Cheney’s visit will come only weeks after a Turkish ground incursion into northern Iraq. The Turkish military began a ground offensive against the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq on Feb. 21 and announced that troops were being withdrawn on Feb. 29. The offensive, the biggest anti-PKK operation in a decade, apparently had US consent, but Washington underlined repeatedly that it must be limited in length and scope to avoid damaging Iraq’s stability. Turkish officials said the US provided intelligence support for the operation.
Iraq's president arrived in Turkey for a working visit yesterday, a week after the Turkish army ended its controversial assault on PKK Kurdish separatists in the mountains of northern Iraq.
Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, is the first Iraqi head of state to visit Turkey since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The trip coincides with a growing impression among foreign diplomats in Ankara that the Turkish government is trying to extend its focus on Iraq away from the fight against terrorism and to engage more with Baghdad to ensure, among other things, that the country does not disintegrate.
A sizeable part of the Turkish security establishment, and perhaps also of public opinion, believes that Iraq's Kurds support the PKK and its separatist terror threat to Turkey, which has a large Kurdish population. So terrorism is high on the visit's agenda but Turkish officials were keen to stress that the the emphasis would be on diplomacy.
A Turkish high court ruled Monday that religious education classes geared toward Sunni Muslims should not be compulsory, a major victory for a Shiite branch of Islam.
The ruling affecting Turkey's Alevi community is also likely to please the European Union which has made religious liberties a condition for Turkey's membership bid. The EU has been pressing Turkey to address Alevi claims.
The Alevis are followers of a tradition rooted in Shiite beliefs, and have long complained of discrimination and forced assimilation through mandatory courses on Sunni Islam in schools. An overwhelming majority of Turks are Sunni.
The decision means Turkey's Education Ministry will now have to either introduce classes geared toward the Alevi faith or make religious classes non-mandatory.
"For the Religious Culture and Morality course to be mandatory under its current content is against the law," the court ruled.
Turkey and the U.S. rejected on Saturday Washington’s any influence in the decision to pull out the troops from Iraq following a week-long cross-border operation against outlawed PKK separatists. But Turkish newspapers noted the unexpected withdrawal came a day after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates' brief trip to Ankara and Bush's call called for a short and carefully targeted operation.
The head of Turkish military General Yasar Buyukanit told Milliyet daily the withdrawal from northern Iraq was based solely on military needs. "No one said withdraw," Buyukanit said in an interview. "This was a decision taken on military reasons altogether. There was not even a hint from politicians or foreigners to withdraw."
Thousands of Turkish troops, backed by warplanes and attack helicopters, crossed the border on February 21 to root out PKK separatists and destroy their numerous bases. It was Turkey's first major ground offensive against the PKK in northern Iraq in a decade. The withdrawal came a day after US President George W. Bush urged Turkey to end its withdrawal "as quickly as possible" and visiting Gates personally put pressure on Turkish leaders during talks in Ankara.
However Buyukanit said the decision to pull out was given long before Gates arrived in Ankara after Turkish troops killed 240 out of the 300 PKK separatists targeted near a major base before losing contact with the militants and had not been announced earlier for tactical reasons. "One third of our forces were inside Turkey on Wednesday, but it would have been murder to announce the withdrawal then," he added. PKK considered as a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and the E.U.
The Turkish army ended its week-old ground offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq on Friday, saying its forces had pulled out after achieving their objectives.
The withdrawal followed strong US pressure on its NATO ally to wrap up the incursion against the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), launched late on February 21.
"The objectives set at the start of the operation have been achieved and our forces... returned to their home bases as of Friday morning," a statement from the military general staff said.
At least 240 PKK militants were killed and dozens of rebel hideouts, logistics bases and ammunition depots destroyed, it said, putting the army losses at 27 men.
The PKK "was shown that northern Iraq is not a safe region for them," the statement said.
Television footage showed dozens of military trucks loaded with soldiers crossing into Turkey from the border town of Cukurca, while empty vehicles climbed mountainous roads in the opposition direction.
Turkey declined to give Iraq a timetable for withdrawal of troops fighting PKK on Wednesday, while Turkish army announced that 77 more PKK militants were killed, taking the death toll to 230 since the operation launched last week. Turkish army said in a statement five more Turkish troops were killed in heavy fighting. Turkey's fatalities now rose to 24. It described the Tuesday night's operation as "the most extensive one since the beginning of the cross-border land operation". Its forces had hit 475 new targets, including shelters, anti-aircraft facilities, training bases and command centers, it added. On Wednesday Turkish warplanes are bombing hide-outs of PKK terrorists in mountainous area in Siladze region to neutralize terrorists and destroy the organization's infrastructure in the region, the official Anatolian Agency reported. AP reported more than 40 military trucks ferried hundreds of commandos toward the Iraqi border in better weather, a day after heavy snow slowed down Turkeys offensive and F-16 warplanes were seen flying over the border town of Cukurca toward Iraq, while helicopters brought dozens of troops to a base on the outskirts of the town. Some helicopters also headed toward Iraq. A Turkish diplomatic delegation led by Prime Ministry Chief Adviser, Ahmet Davutoglu, met Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari in Baghdad on Wednesday over Turkish military's ground operation in Iraq's north. "Our objective is clear, our mission is clear and there is no timetable until those terrorist bases are eliminated," Ahmet Davutoglu told a news conference after talks in Baghdad with Zebari, adding the incursion will be "limited".
Two secular Turkish opposition parties jointly appealed to the Constitutional Court on Wednesday to overturn a law allowing women to wear Islamic head scarves in universities. The Republican People's Party and Democratic Left Party said the law, already approved by the Parliament and the president, violated the secular principles of the Constitution. Most universities have defied an instruction from the higher education board and denied entry to students wearing an Islamic head scarf. "We have come to the Constitutional Court to fulfill a historic and important mission," said Onder Sav, general secretary of the Republican People's Party. "Lifting the ban on the head scarf would lead to pressures on those who do not cover their hair." Most proponents of the ban also see the head scarf as an emblem of political Islam and consider any attempt to allow it in schools and government buildings as an attack against Turkey's secular laws. The ban's opponents say the head scarf is a matter of free expression. It was not clear when the nation's top court, whose past verdicts helped enforce the ban, would make a decision. Government attempts to lift a ban on head scarves in universities have escalated tensions between the secular opposition and the Islamic-rooted governing party since its victory in general elections last summer. Earlier this month, Parliament passed two constitutional amendments that the governing party considers sufficient to abolish the ban. President Abdullah Gul, a pious Muslim, approved the change Friday. The amendments make it harder to bar anyone from the right to higher education unless he is in clear violation of laws, which the government thinks do not openly forbid Islamic head scarves in universities. The government says the measure is aimed at expanding democracy and freedoms as part of Turkey's campaign for EU membership.
©